JP4595973B2 - Data transmitting apparatus and program - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a data transmission apparatus that adds an attached file to an electronic mail and transmits the data to a destination, a data transmission apparatus that transmits image data to a specified transmission destination, and a program executed by a computer of those apparatuses.

  In recent years, a multi-function digital copier (hereinafter simply referred to as “MFP”) that uses a personal computer as a client terminal and is connected to the network is rapidly spreading. Among such functions of the MFP, an e-mail from a client terminal is accepted, the image data of the original read by the scanner unit is added to the e-mail as an attached file, and the other party specified by the e-mail There is a so-called Scan to e-mail function to send first.

By using this Scan to e-mail function, there is no need for the sender to take in the image data read by the MFP once, and attach it to an e-mail and send it to the other party. There is an advantage that the original image can be quickly transmitted to the other party.
JP 2002-041413 A JP 2001-266006 A Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-044152

However, even with such a convenient function, since it is an attached file, the sender cannot check the image state of the original image read by the MFP, and it is unclear whether the original has been read correctly by the scanner. Since it is transmitted to the other party as it is, there has been a request for the sender to confirm the content of the attached file to be transmitted.
In particular, the amount of image data is generally large. On the other hand, the memory capacity of the mailbox allocated for each person's account in the mail server is limited by the contract between the partner and the mail server administrator. Therefore, if transmission is made to a partner having a small memory capacity in the mailbox, the MFP reduces the amount of data such as image data compression processing or resolution conversion processing (hereinafter referred to as “data amount reduction processing”). .) Is required. Depending on the method of reducing the amount of data at this time, there is a risk that important data may be lost and the content intended by the sender may not be transmitted to the other party accurately. The request to confirm the contents of the attached file becomes stronger.

  Similar inconveniences may occur in general data transmission apparatuses having a function of performing some processing on image data and transmitting the processed image data to a transmission destination designated by the user. The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems, and includes a data transmission device that adds an attached file to an e-mail received from a user and transmits the attached file to a transmission destination designated by the e-mail, And a data transmission apparatus that transmits image data to a transmission destination designated by the user, and can confirm the contents of the attached file or the image data on the side of the user who requested the transmission, if necessary, and It is an object of the present invention to provide a program to be executed by these devices.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a data transmission apparatus for transmitting an e-mail with an attached file from a transmission source to a transmission destination designated by the e-mail, and for acquiring image data. An acquisition means; an email reception capacity information acquisition means for acquiring information relating to an email reception capacity of a transmission destination; an image data amount acquisition means for acquiring a data amount of image data acquired by the image data acquisition means; By comparing the information regarding the reception capacity and the data amount of the acquired image data, it is determined by the determination unit whether the data amount reduction processing of the image data is necessary for each designated transmission destination , When the data amount reduction process is deemed necessary, and the data amount reduction processing means for performing data amount reduction processing on the image data, data amount reduction At the destination determined to be necessary, the attached file is generated from the image data that has been subjected to the data amount reduction processing, and the data amount reduction processing is performed at the destination that is determined not to require the data amount reduction processing. and attachment generating means for generating an attachment from no image data, wherein when said data amount reduction process at least for a part of the transmission destination of the designated destination is added to made the attachments email is the attached additional data amount reduction processing information of the image data which has been made as a file transmitted to the transmission source, the attachment is conductive to the the data amount reduction process for all of the designated destination is not performed when added to the e-mail includes the transmission means it does not transmit the information of the image data added as the attachment to the sender Characterized in that it obtain.

Here, a mail reception capacity storage unit that stores information about a mail reception capacity for each transmission destination input in advance by a user is provided, and the mail reception capacity information acquisition unit stores the contents stored in the mail reception capacity storage unit. With reference to the information, information on the mail reception capacity of the transmission destination may be acquired.
Further, a determination means for determining the mail reception capacity of each transmission destination based on the transmission result of the e-mail to each transmission destination, and a mail reception capacity storage for storing the determined mail reception capacity in association with the transmission destination The mail reception capacity information acquisition means may acquire information related to the mail reception capacity of the transmission destination with reference to the contents stored in the mail reception capacity storage means.

Here, the determining means transmits the image data attached to the e-mail to each destination to each destination by gradually reducing the data amount by the data amount reducing process from the state where the data amount reducing process is not applied. However, the mail reception capacity of each destination may be determined based on the presence or absence of an error message for those transmissions.
Here, the transmission source e-mail address storing means for storing the transmission source e-mail address corresponding to the user ID, and the user ID receiving means for receiving the input of the user ID, the transmission source e-mail address acquisition means includes Based on the user ID received by the user ID receiving means, the e-mail address of the sender user may be acquired by referring to the contents stored in the sender mail address storage means.

Here, irrespective of the data amount reduction processing, the automatic transmission mode receiving means for receiving the setting of the automatic distribution mode for transmitting the e-mail to be transmitted to the transmission destination to the transmission source e-mail address is provided, and the transmission When the automatic delivery mode is set, the means is that the attached file of the image data that has not been subjected to the data amount reduction processing is added to the e-mail for all of the designated transmission destinations. even, may be transmitted to e-mail attachments is added image data in which the data amount reduction process is not performed in the addressed sender's email address.

The present invention also provides an image data acquisition process for acquiring image data to a computer of a data transmission apparatus that transmits an electronic mail with an attached file from a transmission source to a transmission destination specified by the electronic mail, and a transmission destination. Mail receiving capacity information acquisition processing for acquiring information related to the mail receiving capacity, image data amount acquisition processing for acquiring the data amount of image data acquired by the image data acquisition processing, information about the acquired mail receiving capacity, and The data amount of the acquired image data is compared to determine whether the data amount reduction processing of the image data is necessary for each designated transmission destination, and the data amount reduction processing is required by the determination processing Is determined , the data amount reduction execution process for executing the data amount reduction process on the image data and the data amount reduction process are necessary. At the destination determined to be necessary, an attached file is generated from the image data that has been subjected to the data amount reduction processing, and the image that has not been subjected to the data amount reduction processing is determined for the transmission destination that is determined not to require the data amount reduction processing. and attachment file generation process for generating the attachment from the data, when said data amount reduction process at least for a part of the transmission destination of the designated transmission destination is made attachment is added to the electronic mail, It transmits information of the image data appended data amount reduction process has been performed as the attachment to the sender, wherein the data amount reduction processing for all of the designated destination is not performed attachments email when added to the to execute the transmission processing to not send the information of the image data added as the attachment to the sender It is characterized in.

According to the present invention, in a data transmission device that transmits an electronic mail with an attached file from a transmission source to a transmission destination specified by the electronic mail, the attachment file that has been subjected to the data amount reduction processing is transmitted to the transmission destination. When attached to an e-mail, the attached file is also sent to the sender. On the other hand, when an attached file that has not been subjected to data amount reduction processing is added to an e-mail to the recipient, Since transmission is not performed, only image data that has been subjected to processing such as image compression that needs to be confirmed by the user of the transmission source can be transmitted to the transmission source, and useless data transmission is eliminated. In addition, the user does not have to view image data that does not need to be confirmed.

Hereinafter, an embodiment in which a data transmission apparatus according to the present invention is applied to a multifunction digital copying machine (MFP) will be described with reference to the drawings.
(1) Configuration of Image Transmission System First, the overall configuration of an image transmission system including an MFP according to the present embodiment will be described.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of the configuration of the image processing system. As shown in the figure, this system includes an MFP 10, two client terminals 20, 30, 80, 90, a scanner 40, and a mail server 70. The MFP 10, the client terminals 20 and 30, and the scanner 40 are connected via a LAN (Local Area Network) 50.

  The MFP 10 and the client terminals 20 and 30 are also connected to the Internet 60 via the router 51 so that e-mail can be exchanged with the client terminals 80 and 90 via the mail server 70 on the Internet 60. It is configured. The MFP 10 is a digital color copier, and includes a scanner unit, a printer unit, and a control unit for controlling these operations. In addition to a normal copy function, the MFP 10 performs a print job in response to a request from a client terminal. It has a print function to execute and the above-mentioned Scan to e-mail function.

  Each of the client terminals 20 and 30 is a general-purpose personal computer in which a network communication program and mail software (e-mail transmission / reception and management software) are installed, and the existing communication protocol (TCP / IP) is used. Send / receive data to / from other terminals. The scanner 40 is of a network type, and is configured to transmit image data of a read original document to the MFP 10, the client terminals 20, 30, etc. via the LAN 50.

  When the Scan to e-mail function of the MFP 10 is used in such a system, the following procedure is executed as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-41413. That is, first, in the user's client terminal, a dedicated application installed in advance to use the Scan to e-mail function of the MFP 10 is started, and the destination e-mail address of the other party to whom the image is to be transmitted on the setting screen (Hereinafter, it may be simply referred to as “address.”) Enter header information such as message and body information such as message, etc., and execute the Scan to e-mail function with this email information. The request is transmitted to the IP address of the MFP 10.

  Thereafter, the user visits the MFP 10 to place the document to be attached on the document tray of the scanner unit, and presses the start button for executing the Scan to e-mail function on the operation panel. Then, the document is read by the scanner unit of the MFP 10, and the image data obtained thereby is sent as an attached file to the e-mail address received from the user's client terminal. In this embodiment, at this time, if necessary, the e-mail attached with the attached file is transmitted to the user in a non-displayed broadcast manner, so that the sender can send it to the other party at his / her own terminal. It is possible to check the contents of the attached file. Details will be described later.

  Note that the image data for attachment is acquired by transferring image data obtained by reading with another scanner 40 via the LAN 50 in addition to reading the original with the scanner unit of the MFP 10 as described above. Alternatively, if an image server (not shown) or the like is used as an e-mail relay device, the image data selected by the user among the image data stored in the internal storage device is used as the attached file. It is also possible.

  (2) Configuration of Control Unit Inside MFP 10 As described above, MFP 10 is a color digital copying machine, and controls a scanner unit, a printer unit, their operation, and communication with other terminals. 100. The scanner unit is equipped with an automatic document feeder (ADF), sends a bundle of documents placed on the document tray one by one to the document reading unit, drives the scanner, and converts the document image into an electrical signal by the CCD image sensor. In this way, RGB image data is obtained. Also, the printer unit performs an operation of scanning the photosensitive drum with a laser based on the input image data to form an electrostatic latent image, and transferring the toner attached to the electrostatic latent image onto a transfer sheet. Therefore, the description will be omitted below, and the configuration of the internal control unit and its control operation will be mainly described.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the control unit 100. As shown in the figure, the control unit 100 includes a network communication unit 101, an image memory 102, an image compression / resolution conversion unit 103, a destination capacity limit information storage unit 104, a CPU 105, a ROM 106, a RAM 107, an operation panel 108, a scanner. A control unit 110, a printer control unit 120, and the like are connected via a bus 109.

  Upon receiving an instruction from the CPU 105, the network communication unit 101 is connected to other terminals and servers via the LAN 50 and the Internet 60 based on TCP / IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol), and executes transmission and reception of data and electronic mail. To do. In addition, RGB image data of the document obtained by reading with the CCD image sensor of the scanner unit is stored in the image memory 102 for each page of the document.

  The destination capacity limit information storage unit 104 is a non-volatile memory such as an EEPROM, and is configured for an e-mail address and the e-mail address in the internal capacity limit registration table 80 as shown in FIG. The limit value of the memory capacity is checked in advance and registered by the administrator of the MFP 10. The table shows that e-mail addresses corresponding to destinations B, C, D, E, and F are stored in order from the top. The memory capacity limit is generally determined by a contract between the user of the mail address and the mail server administrator.

  The image compression / resolution conversion unit 103 reads target image data from the image memory 102 based on an instruction from the CPU 105, performs compression processing on the image data, and / or converts it to a lower resolution to reduce the data amount. . In the present embodiment, for example, LZW compression processing, which is known as image compression processing, is performed for conversion into a TIFF file, and as a conversion method for resolution reduction, a down-sampling method or an average operation method is used. Is to be executed. However, it goes without saying that the compression processing and resolution conversion methods are not limited to these.

  The ROM 106 stores a control program to be executed by the CPU 110, mail software, a network communication program, and the like, and the CPU 105 executes control of each unit based on the program. The RAM 107 provides a work area when the CPU 105 executes the control. The scanner control unit 110 controls the operation of the scanner unit to acquire a document image signal. The printer control unit 120 controls the operation of the printer unit, and executes a printing operation on paper based on the document information obtained by the scanner unit or the print data transmitted from the client terminal via the network. Let

  (3) Processing Contents in Control Unit 100 FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the processing contents of the control unit 100 that are executed in response to an execution request for the Scan to e-mail function from the client terminal in this embodiment. First, e-mail information transmitted from the user client terminal 20 to the IP address of the MFP 10 is received via the network communication unit 101, and the contents are temporarily stored in, for example, the RAM 107 (step S1). Thereafter, when the user places the document on the document tray of the MFP 10 and presses the start button, the scanner unit reads the document at a predetermined resolution, for example, 600 dpi, and the image data obtained thereby is converted into an image. Store in the memory 102 (step S3). At this time, the number of bits of the image data is counted, and the data amount of the image data for all the read originals is calculated (step S3).

  Next, based on the data amount of the image data and the capacity limitation of the destination server, it is transmitted as an attached file, so it is determined how much data reduction processing is necessary for the read image data, and grouping processing is performed. Is executed (step S4). FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a subroutine of this grouping process. In the present embodiment as well, according to the necessity of data reduction and the degree of data reduction, there are four groups from the first transmission group to the fourth transmission group. Classification.

  First, e-mail addresses of transmission destinations are sequentially extracted from the transmission destination columns (“to”, “cc”, and “bcc” columns) of the header portion of the e-mail stored in the RAM 107 (step S41). The capacity limit information of the mail server corresponding to the e-mail address is read from the capacity limit registration table 200 (FIG. 3) of the destination capacity limit information storage unit 104 (step S42).

  Next, the data amount of the attached file is compared with the capacity limit value of the transmission destination, and it is determined whether or not a data amount reduction process is necessary for transmission to the transmission destination (step S43). For example, if the amount of image data is 7 MB, when the transmission destination is E or F, the data can be transmitted as it is, so the data amount reduction processing is unnecessary, and for other B, C, D, etc. Requires data reduction processing.

  If it is determined in step S43 that the data amount reduction process is unnecessary, the transmission destination is classified into the first transmission group (step S44). Specifically, a process for storing the e-mail address in association with the first transmission group in the RAM 107 is performed (hereinafter, the same applies to classification into other transmission groups). If it is determined in step S43 that the amount of data needs to be reduced, the process proceeds to step S45, where compression processing is performed on the image data to determine whether transmission to the other party is possible (step S43). S45). If the compression rate is 70%, 7 MB of image data is reduced to about 5 MB, and transmission is possible when the destination is D.

  If YES in step S45, the transmission destination is classified into the second transmission group. If “NO” in the step S45, the process shifts to a step S47 to determine whether or not the data amount that can be transmitted by the resolution conversion process is reached. For example, if the resolution conversion is to reduce 600 dpi to 400 dpi, the amount of data can be reduced to about 44% at a stroke. Therefore, 7 MB of image data becomes about 3.1 MB, and the destination is B Even so, transmission is possible.

  If transmission is possible in step S47, it is classified into the third transmission group (step S48), and if transmission is impossible, it is classified into the fourth transmission group (step S49). As described later, when classified into the fourth transmission group, both the resolution conversion process and the compression process are added to the image data to be attached, so that the data amount is about 31%. (70% × 44%). As a result, the amount of image data is about 2.2 MB, and transmission is possible even when the destination is C.

  In the above grouping, an e-mail header portion (see 301 and 302 in FIG. 7) indicating the transmission destination for each group is formed. After the above grouping is executed for all the transmission destinations (YES in step S50), the process returns to the flowchart of FIG. 4, and in step S5, an attached file is created for each of the grouped transmission destinations.

  FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the contents of the data amount reduction process. First, referring to the classification table in the RAM 107, it is determined whether or not there is a transmission destination classified into the first transmission group (step S51). If there is a classified transmission destination, a data amount reduction process is performed on the image data. Without being applied, the data is stored in a memory area corresponding to the first transmission group in the RAM 107 (or the image memory 102) (step S52), and this is used as an attached file for the first transmission group.

  Similarly, if there is a destination belonging to the second transmission group (YES in step S53), the image data is compressed and stored in the RAM 107 as an attached file for the second transmission group (step S54). , S52). If there is a transmission destination belonging to the third transmission group (YES in step S55), the image data is subjected to resolution conversion processing to reduce the amount of data, and then stored in the RAM 107 as an attachment file for the third transmission group. (Steps S56 and S52), and if there is a destination belonging to the fourth transmission group (YES in Step S57), the image data is subjected to both resolution conversion processing and compression processing (Step S58, After reducing the amount of data (S59), it is stored in the RAM 107 as an attachment file for the fourth transmission group (step S52).

  When the above process is performed for all groups (YES in step S60), the attached file creation process is terminated and the process returns to the flowchart of FIG. In step S6 of FIG. 4, the sender address is extracted from the header part of the email received from the client terminal 20 stored in the RAM 107, and then in step S7, all the destinations are assigned to the first transmission group. Determine if it was included.

  If it is determined in step S7 that all of the transmission destinations are not included in the first transmission group, the group having the highest data amount reduction rate is selected from the groups in which the transmission destinations are classified next (step S8). ) The sender's e-mail address is added to the non-display broadcast (bcc) in the header part for the transmission group (step S9). Then, the image data corresponding to the e-mail set for each transmission group is read from the RAM 107, attached, and distributed to the transmission destination of each group (step S10).

In this distribution, the control unit 100 is connected to the mail server 70 based on TCP / IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) via the network communication unit 150, and is transmitted by a transmission protocol such as SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). It is executed by sending the e-mail to the mail server 70.
If all the transmission destinations belong to the first transmission group in step S7, the process proceeds to step S11 to determine whether or not the automatic distribution is currently set (step S11). Then, the address of the transmission source is added as the transmission destination of the non-display broadcast (bcc) of the first transmission group (step S12), and then the image data for the first transmission group is read from the RAM 107 and is used as an attached file. The message is distributed to all the transmission destinations including the transmission source user (step S10).

  This automatic delivery mode is set from the operation panel 108 by a user who desires transmission to the attached file even if the attached file is not subjected to processing such as compression. When creating an attached file without reducing the amount of data of image data, there is no possibility that important data will be lost, but the document feed by ADF is poor and the document is properly read by the document reading unit. Is not sent, and there is also a request to keep the electronic data of the sent document itself, so it is left to the user to decide whether or not to send the image data. .

Therefore, if the user thinks that transmission to his / her terminal is unnecessary when there is no reduction in the amount of image data, the automatic distribution need not be set. In this case, NO is determined in step S11. Since step S12 is skipped, no image data is transmitted to the user. FIG. 7 schematically shows a characteristic part of the processing content.
First, user A transmits to the MFP 10 e-mail information indicated as the transmission destination 300 from his / her terminal together with a request to execute the Scan to e-mail function. The MFP 10 receives this and waits for the user to place a document on the document tray of the scanner unit and press the start button. When the user presses it, the document is read and image data is generated. The necessity of reducing the amount of data for the image data is determined from the information on the capacity limit of the destination server stored in the destination capacity limit information storage unit 104, and the degree is determined. Create information in the email header. In FIG. 7, when the transmission destination of the email is divided only into the first transmission group and the second transmission group, the screen 301 showing the information of the header part of the email of the first transmission group and the electronic of the second transmission group A screen 302 showing information on the header part of the mail is shown. Then, the image data not subjected to the data reduction process is set as an attachment file for the first transmission group, and the image data subjected to only compression is set as an attachment file for the second transmission group.

  In this case, the e-mail address of the sender A is added to the non-display broadcast (bcc) column in the second transmission group in which the attached image is compressed, and the attached file whose image is further deteriorated is sent to the sender. Thus, the sender can check whether important data is missing. As described above, when the MFP according to the present embodiment also receives a request to execute the Scan to e-mail function together with e-mail information from the client terminal, the MFP according to the memory capacity limit in the destination mail server. The amount of image data can be accurately reduced and transmitted to the other party. In addition, for image data that has the largest amount of data reduction among transmitted image data, that is, image data that has the largest amount of change from the original image, the sender's e-mail address must be the non-display broadcast destination. In addition, since it is sent to this, it is easy for the sending user to open the attachment of the e-mail and confirm that there is no significant omission in the image data or that the reading by the scanner was successful Can be confirmed. Here, the attachment file of the transmission group having the highest data amount reduction rate is transmitted to the transmission source user because the user sees the attachment image with the smallest data amount, and If there is no particular problem, it can be determined that there is no problem with other attached images having a lower data amount reduction rate. Further, the reason why the transmission is transmitted to the transmission source in the form of non-display broadcast is that there is no need to inform the transmission destination that the image is transmitted to the transmission source.

<Modification>
Although the present invention has been described based on the embodiment, the technical scope of the present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and the following modifications can be considered.
(1) First, in the grouping process based on the transmission destination capacity limitation in FIG. 4, the first to fourth transmission groups are classified according to the degree of reduction in the amount of image data, but the number of groups is larger than this. There is no problem. If the number of groups is increased, the amount of data can be gradually reduced, and the image quality of the attached image will not be suddenly deteriorated, and transmission is performed with the optimum data reduction amount according to the capacity limit of the transmission destination. Can do.

  (2) Further, in the above embodiment, the capacity limitation imposed on the transmission source e-mail address has been described without mentioning it at all. However, if the memory capacity allocated to the sender in the mail server is not so large, even if the sender address is added by non-display broadcast transmission in steps S9 and S12 in FIG. There may be a case where the capacity of the attached file to be sent to exceeds the limit capacity of the transmission source. In such a case, the attached file may be further subjected to data reduction processing and then transmitted to the transmission source.

The sender confirms the attached image further deteriorated than the attached image to be sent to the transmission destination with his / her terminal, and if a particularly important data missing is not found in the image, the sender has an appropriate image at the transmission destination. It can be inferred that the document has been transmitted, and at least the fact that there was no mistake in document feeding in the ADF can be confirmed.
(3) In the above embodiment, transmission destination capacity restriction information is obtained and stored in the transmission destination capacity restriction information storage unit 104 in advance.

Such capacity restriction information is very troublesome because the user must list the destinations in advance and check with the destination or the mail server company. Therefore, it is sufficient that the MFP 10 can automatically register the capacity limit information of the transmission destination as follows.
First, all the transmission destinations are mechanically classified into only the first transmission group, and the electronic mail is transmitted to all the transmission destinations without attaching the data amount reduction process to the image data. In the existing e-mail communication protocol, if the capacity of the e-mail exceeds the memory capacity assigned to each e-mail address, an error message is sent to each e-mail destination (user of the client terminal 20). Reply to.

  Here, a program for automatic transfer to the MFP 10 is added to the driver for the Scan to e-mail function of the client terminal 20 so that the error message is transferred to the MFP 10. The MFP 10 also has an e-mail transmission / reception function, receives the forwarded error message, classifies the destination in which the error has occurred into the second transmission group, and compresses the image data. Process it and send it again as an email attachment. If an error message is not issued from the mail server, the message can be transmitted safely, so the data amount of the attached file at that time (or the data amount rounded up to the nearest 1MB) The information is registered in the capacity limit registration table 200 of the destination capacity limit information storage unit 104 in association with the destination e-mail address.

  If an error message is issued even in the classification of the second transmission group, the transmission destination is further classified into the third transmission group and the fourth transmission group in the same manner as above, and the data amount reduction / transmission processing is performed. The data amount at the stage of transmission is registered in the management table 200. By doing so, it is possible to obtain a value that approximates the transmission destination capacity limit to some extent.

  In addition, in the mail server, with respect to an e-mail sent against the capacity limit, an error message is sent to the transmission source and information on the limited capacity allocated to the destination of the e-mail is sent back by e-mail. It is very convenient if you program it. The MFP 10 extracts the e-mail address and the capacity limit information of the corresponding transmission destination from the e-mail including the error message, registers them in the management table 200, and immediately determines to which transmission group the transmission destination belongs. Can be judged.

  Further, when an e-mail is transmitted from the MFP 10 to the mail server 70, the e-mail address of the self (MFP 10) as a relay device is also attached to the e-mail header. Sending an error message directly to the mail address is convenient because it saves the trouble of transferring from the client terminal 20 to the MFP 10.

(4) The content of the attached fill data reduction processing is not limited to the above-described compression processing and resolution conversion. For example, if the number of gradations of each RGB data is reduced and converted from the normal 256 gradations to 128 gradations, the data amount will be halved at once, and if a color image is converted to a monochrome image, the data amount will be It can be reduced to one third.
(5) In the above embodiment, the case where the Scan to e-mail function of the MFP is used has been described. However, if a similar relay function is provided, a scanner unit device or a multifunction device such as an MFP is not used. Even a simple data processing apparatus can be applied.

  Also, instead of using the Scan to e-mail function, for example, the destination e-mail address and the self e-mail address as the sender are input from the operation panel of the MFP 10 and the image file is sent to the designated destination. May be configured to transmit. At this time, it is convenient if the sender's e-mail address is registered in advance in an internal non-volatile memory and the corresponding sender's e-mail address is read by inputting the user ID from a numeric keypad or the like. .

Further, the present invention does not necessarily take the form of an e-mail attachment as a method for transmitting image data. Instead of using the e-mail address as described above for the destination or source network address, the IP address or host The present invention can also be applied to a situation where an image file is transmitted by FTP (File Transfer Protocol) as a computer name or the like.
In some cases, the data to be transmitted may be not only an image file but also a text file. In short, the present invention is generally applicable to a data transmitting apparatus that transmits data to a destination specified by a user. is there.

  (6) In the above embodiment, the content of the data amount reduction processing to be added to the image data is changed based on the capacity restriction information in the destination mail server. For example, the content of the image reproduction software of the counterpart terminal In consideration of the other party's environment such as the resolution of the display, the MFP 10 may perform necessary processing on the image data. That is, the present invention can broadly include a case where some data processing is added on the data transmission device side in accordance with the reception environment of the other party including the capacity limitation on the mail server side. As the image data transmitted to the user, the one having the largest change amount from the original image is selected. This is because such image data is most likely to lose important data.

(7) In the above embodiment, the image data is acquired via the scanner unit of the MFP 10. However, another scanner device may be used as the image data acquisition unit, and depending on the case, a flexible disk may be used. The image data stored in a recording medium such as a hard disk or a CD-ROM may be read out.
(8) The present invention is not limited to the data transmission device, and may be a data transmission method, or may be a program executed by a computer. In the present invention, the program may be recorded on a computer-readable recording medium such as a flexible disk, a hard disk, a CD-ROM, an MO, a DVD, a DVD-ROM, a DVD-RAM, or a semiconductor memory.

  Further, the program of the present invention does not need to include all modules for causing the computer to execute the processing described above. For example, a communication program, a program included in an OS (Operating System), and the like are separately provided. You may make it make a computer perform each process of this invention using the various general purpose programs which can be installed.

  The present invention is suitable as a data transmission apparatus having a function of adding a data amount reduction process to image data attached to an e-mail.

It is a figure which shows the whole structure of the image delivery system which concerns on embodiment of this invention. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a control unit in the MFP. FIG. It is a figure which shows an example of the capacity | capacitance restriction registration table stored in the transmission destination capacity | capacitance information storage part 104 of the said control part. It is a flowchart which shows the processing content in the said control part. It is a flowchart which shows the content of the grouping process by the transmission destination capacity restriction | limiting of step S4 of FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the content of the attachment file creation process for every group of step S5 of FIG. FIG. 6 is a diagram schematically showing an e-mail sending state when the Scan to e-mail function of the MFP according to the present embodiment is executed.

Explanation of symbols

10 MFP
20, 30, 80, 90 Client terminal 40 Scanner 50 LAN
60 Internet 70 Mail Server 100 Control Unit 101 Network Communication Unit 102 Image Memory 103 Image Compression / Resolution Conversion Unit 104 Destination Capacity Limit Information Storage Unit 105 CPU
106 ROM
107 RAM
108 Operation Panel 110 Scanner Control Unit 120 Printer Control Unit 200 Capacity Limit Registration Table

Claims (7)

A data transmission device that transmits an email with an attached file from a sender to a destination specified in the email,
Image data acquisition means for acquiring image data;
Mail receiving capacity information acquisition means for acquiring information on the mail receiving capacity of the destination;
Image data amount acquisition means for acquiring the data amount of the image data acquired by the image data acquisition means;
A determination unit that compares the information about the acquired mail reception capacity with the data amount of the acquired image data and determines whether or not a data amount reduction process of the image data is necessary for each of the designated destinations ;
If the determination means determines that data amount reduction processing is necessary, data amount reduction processing means for performing data amount reduction processing on the image data;
An attachment file is generated from the image data that has been subjected to the data amount reduction process for the destination determined to require the data amount reduction process, and the data amount reduction process is performed for the destination that is determined not to require the data amount reduction process. Attached file generating means for generating an attached file from image data that has not been
Wherein when the data amount reduction process at least for a part of the transmission destination of the designated destination is added to the attachments email was made, the additional data amount reduction process as the attachment is made transmitting the information of the image data to the transmission source, wherein when said data amount reduction process for all of the designated destination is added to made have not been attachments email is added as the attachment A data transmission apparatus comprising: a transmission unit that does not transmit the information of the image data to the transmission source. Mail receiving capacity storage means for storing information related to the mail receiving capacity for each destination input in advance by the user,
The data transmission apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the mail reception capacity information acquisition unit acquires information related to a mail reception capacity of a transmission destination with reference to contents stored in the mail reception capacity storage unit. . A determination means for determining a mail reception capacity of each destination based on a transmission result of an e-mail to each destination;
Mail receiving capacity storage means for storing the determined mail receiving capacity in association with the destination, and
The data transmission apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the mail reception capacity information acquisition unit acquires information related to a mail reception capacity of a transmission destination with reference to contents stored in the mail reception capacity storage unit. . The determining means includes
The image data attached to the e-mail to each destination is sent to each destination by gradually reducing the data amount by the data amount reduction processing from the state where the data amount reduction processing is not applied, and an error message for those transmissions The data transmission device according to claim 3, wherein the mail reception capacity of each transmission destination is determined based on the presence or absence of. A source e-mail storage means for storing a source e-mail address in association with a user ID;
User ID receiving means for receiving an input of a user ID,
The source e-mail address acquisition unit acquires the e-mail address of the source user by referring to the content stored in the source e-mail address storage unit based on the user ID received by the user ID reception unit. The data transmission device according to claim 1, wherein the data transmission device is a data transmission device. Regardless of the data amount reduction processing, comprising an automatic distribution mode receiving means for receiving an automatic distribution mode setting for transmitting an e-mail to be transmitted to a transmission destination to a transmission source e-mail address,
When the automatic delivery mode is set, the transmission means adds an attachment file of image data for which data amount reduction processing has not been performed for all of the designated transmission destinations to the e-mail Even so, an e-mail to which an attached file of image data not subjected to the data amount reduction process is added is transmitted to the e-mail address of the transmission source. Data transmission device. To the computer of the data transmission device that sends the email with the attached file from the sender to the destination specified in the email,
Image data acquisition processing for acquiring image data;
Email reception capacity information acquisition processing to acquire information about the email reception capacity of the destination,
Image data amount acquisition processing for acquiring the data amount of the image data acquired by the image data acquisition processing;
A determination process for determining whether or not a data amount reduction process for image data is necessary for each of the designated transmission destinations by comparing the acquired information regarding the mail reception capacity with the data amount of the acquired image data;
When it is determined by the determination process that a data amount reduction process is necessary, a data amount reduction execution process for executing a data amount reduction process on the image data;
An attachment file is generated from the image data that has been subjected to the data amount reduction process for the destination determined to require the data amount reduction process, and the data amount reduction process is performed for the destination that is determined not to require the data amount reduction process. Attachment file generation processing for generating an attachment file from image data that has not been
Wherein when the data amount reduction process at least for a part of the transmission destination of the designated destination is added to the attachments email was made, the additional data amount reduction process as the attachment is made transmitting the information of the image data to the transmission source, wherein when said data amount reduction process for all of the designated destination is added to made have not been attachments email is added as the attachment And a transmission process for not transmitting the information of the image data transmitted to the transmission source.

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